Definition of "shoestring"

shoestring

/ˈʃuːstɹɪŋ/

noun
plural shoestrings
1. (chiefly US) The string or lace used to secure a shoe to the foot; a shoelace.
  Quotations
  I am ſure ſhe is not half ſo beautiful, and vvill even venture to ſay, that ſhe is not vvorthy to tie her majeſty's ſhoe-ſtrings.
  1755, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, “The Pleasant Artifice Practised to Extricate Our Enamoured Knight from the Most Rigorous Penance He had Imposed upon Himself”, in T[obias] Smollett, transl., The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote. […], volume I, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], part I, book IV, page 221
2. (figuratively, often attributively)
  1. An object that is long and thin, like a shoestring (sense 1).
    (cooking) A long, narrow cut of a food; a julienne.
  2. Chiefly in on a shoestring: very little money; a tight budget.
    Quotations
    As the 80s cult classic starring Madonna as a gorgeous grifter returns, director Susan Seidelman recalls capturing the zeitgeist on a shoestring budget[.]
    2022 November 23, Hadley Freeman, “Like a cinema virgin: how Madonna went stratospheric making Desperately Seeking Susan”, in The Guardian‎
adjective
not comparable
1. (US, chiefly American football, baseball) Of a catch or tackle: made near the ground, close to a player's shoes.
verb
third-person singular simple present shoestrings, present participle shoestringing, simple past and past participle shoestringed
1. (transitive, American football) To tackle (a player) using a shoestring tackle (“one made near the ground, close to a player's shoes”).
2. (transitive, baseball) To catch (a ball) using a shoestring catch (“one made near the ground, close to a player's shoes”).
  Quotations
  We didn't score in our half of the eighth, but it was only because Ernie's line drive was shoestringed by the Giant left fielder, with Rusty Howarth on second.
  1976, Paul R. Rothweiler, The Sensuous Southpaw […], New York, N.Y.: Putnam, page 104
  Most outfielders say that short-hopping a ball so that it looks as if it was caught is more an accident than an art form, but Coach Joe Nossek of the Indians actually tells his charges to hold up the ball after shoestringing it on the off chance that the umpire might be fooled.
  1981 April 13, Steve Wulf, “Tricks of the Trade”, in Sports Illustrated Baseball: Four Decades of Sports Illustrated’s Finest Writing on America’s Favorite Pastime (Collector’s Library), Birmingham, Ala.: Oxmoor House, published 1994, page 275

Definition of "shoestring"

shoestring

noun

Quotations

Quotations

adjective

verb

Quotations